May 1, 2013: Mild, Sunny Weekend Ahead

Forecast Highlights:

With a high pressure staying in place, generally seasonable conditions are expected to continue through the rest of the week into the weekend and early next week, with a sunny and mild weekend expected across the area. A storm will approach the region by mid next week but with uncertainty regarding how much rain will fall, especially given the recent increasingly dry conditions.

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Tonight - Weekend: Sunny, Seasonable

A high pressure remains in place over the region, with mostly sunny skies expected to continue. 850mb temperatures will briefly warm on Thursday resulting in a brief warm up into the 70s away from the coast, with a weak back door cold front expected overnight associated with a mid level low diving SSW parallel to the coast offshore, resulting in temporarily increased cloud cover and a few isolated showers overnight with mostly sunny skies and cooler temperatures for Friday. The mid level low will move offshore over the weekend with ridging slowly shifting south, with warmer temperatures expected to return for the weekend with lighter winds.

With the aforementioned brief warm up for Thursday, mainly sunny skies are expected with highs in the low to mid 70s from NYC and further north/west and the mid 60s to near 70 degrees for Long Island and coastal Connecticut. Mostly cloudy skies are expected overnight with a few isolated showers east of NYC, followed by mostly sunny skies for Friday with highs peaking in the mid to upper 60s north and west of NYC, mid 60s in NYC, and the upper 50s to mid 60s in Long Island and coastal CT. Mainly sunny skies are expected again for the weekend with highs likely peaking in the upper 60s to low 70s from NYC and further north/west and the mid 60s in most of Long Island and S CT.


Next Week: Some Rain Possible

Seasonable temperatures and mostly sunny skies are expected to continue on Monday and possibly Tuesday, with a cutoff low over the central US expected to gradually shift east, reaching the region towards the middle of next week. There is still uncertainty regarding the track of this storm, with most models shifting towards a moderately southern track taking it through the Ohio Valley and into the region. At this time, most models show the system failing to produce significant rain in the region; although this is still subject to change given that this is at least a week away, this aspect of the forecast will need to be monitored. Conditions have been increasingly dry recently; after March with 2.90" of rain in Central Park, about 1.50" below average, April had only 1.31" of rain, about 3" below average, and the first week of May will start out dry as well with little to no rain expected over the next 5-7 days. These dry conditions are not as significant as last spring, when by late April parts of the area were in a moderate drought, but this will have to be watched especially should the dry pattern continue. Stay tuned for more information about the longer range.